Sharp County record., 1887-01-20
THE GREAT DISTRIBUTION.
Sermon by Rev. 7. De Witt Tai
mage, D. D.
A New ADportionment-The Earth to BE
Captured for Christ-Heaven to DO
shared by the Redeemed and the
Unfallen-Final Rewards.

=
for his text a part of the twelfth verse OF
the tiftv-third chapter of Isaiah; lie
shall divide the spoil with the strong"
Following is the sermon:
Nv family, who saw it with their eyes
wear before last, tell me that in the Col
iseum at Rome, where prosecutors used 10
Loft ont half-starved lions to eat UP Chris
tiars. there is now planted the figure OF
cross. And rejoice to know that the up
RIGHT piece of wood nailed to transverse
niece has become the symbol, not more OF
suffering than of victory 1t is of Christ
the COnuueror that my text speaks AS
q llinglv warrior, having subdued an en-
pire, might divide the palaces, and man
sions, and cities, and valleys, and mount
aims, among his officers, so Christ is going
70 divide up all the earth and all the
heavens among His people, and you ana
will have to take our share II we are
strong in faith AMI strong in our Christian
LOYALTY, for my text declares it: he shall
divide the spoil with the strong"
The capture Of this round planet for
Christ is not so much of a job as you might
imagine, when the church takes off its coat
and rolls up it's sleeves for the work,
as il will. There are 12,0OO, 100000 peo-
ple now in the world, and there
are 450OOOOSO Christians. Subtract the
450OOoOO0 who are Christians from
the 12OOOOO0,OOO and there are 11,55O,-
600 900 left to be Christianized Now divide
the 1850, 600 by the 45) 900, 900 already
Christanized, and it makes only twenty
five people for each Christian to bring TO
Christ Surely, when the church gets
wide awake, no Christian will be content
to take to Heaven less than twenty-five.
WHY. hope to take with me at least 1O,-
OOO | know evangehs%s that have already
gathered 80, 600 each for the kingdom. There
are at least 200,009 men in Christendom
whose one businesSit is to save souls SO
/ that when tell you all that we need to
average is twenty-five souls reaped for
4 God in lifetime, all idea of impOssibility
vanishes from this omnipotent crusade.
anoW of Sabbath-school teacher who
mas spent her lifetime in teaching the
young, and she has had five different
classes during all these years, and she tells
me they averaged about seven in class,
and they were all converted and hve times
seven are thirty-fve, as near as can cal
culate. She brought her twenty-five, and
had ten to spare. My grandmother
brought her whole family into the king
dom, and her grandchildren, and, | hope,
all her great-grandchildren for God re-
members a prayer sevcnty-tive years old
as well as though it were a minute; and
she took her twenty-five into the kingdom
\ and had at least one hundred to spare. Be
sides that. the telegraph and the telephone
will, within a few years, put the whole
earth into q compass of ten minutes. Con-
slider this, and also that Omnipotence,
Omniscience and Omnipresence preside
over all the work of bettermcnt, and you
will take this enterprise of the worlds re-
demption out Of the impossibilities into the
POSSIBILITIES, and then out of the possibili-
tiles into the probabilities, and then out Of
the probabilities into the certaintes. The
building of the Union Pacific railroad from
ocean TO ocean was greater unGertaklng
than the girdling of the earth with the
Gospel, for the one enterprise depended
upon the human arm while the other de-
pends upon Almightiness.
Do | really mean all the earth will sur
render to Christ! Yes. How about the
uninviting portionsl VIII Greenland be
evangelized2 The possibility is that after
a few more hundred brave lives are dashed
out among the icebcrgs, that great refrig-
orator, the Polar region, will be given up
10 the walrus and the bear, and the inhab-
itants will come Jwn by invitation into
tolerable climates, or those climates may
soften, and as it has been positively DEM
onstrated that the Arctic region was once
ND fru1it f11lt
those regions may change climate and
again be a blooming garden and fruitful
field. 1t is proved beyond controversy by
German and American scientists that the
Arctic regions were the first portions OF
this world inhabitable; the world hot be-
yond human endurance, those regions
were of course the first to be cool enough
FOR human foot and human lung. 1t Is
positively proved that that Arctic region
was a tropical climate.
Prof Heer, of Zurich, says the remains
of flowers have been found in the Arctic,
Showing it was like Mexico for climate,
and it is found that the Arctic is the moth
er region from which all the flowers de-
scended. Prof. Wallace says the remains
Of all styles of animal life are found in the
live only in warm climates, Now that
Arctic region which has been demonstrate
ed by fora and fauna and geographical ar
gument to have been as full Of vegetation
and life as our Florida, may be turned
back to its original bloom and glory, or it
will be shut up as a museum of crystals for
curiosity seekers once in awhile to visit.
But Arctic and Antarctic in some shape
will belong tU the Redeemer's realm.
What about other unproductive or re-
pulsive regionsl All the deserts will beir-
rigated. the waters will be forced up to the
great American desert between here and
the Pacific by machinery now known or yet
to be invented, and, as great Salt Lake
City has no rain and could not raise an
apple or bushel of wheat in one hundred
Years without artificial help, but is now
Through such means one great garden, so
all the unproductive parts of all the conti-
~, nts will be turned into harvest fields and
orchards. A half-dozen De Lesseps will
furnish the world with all the canals
needed, and will change the course of rivers
and open new lakes, and the great Sahara
desert will be cut up into farms with an
astounding yield of bushels to the acre.
Ihe marsh will be drained of its waters
and cured Of its malaria
saw the other day what was for many
years called the Black Swamp of Ohio, its
chiet crop chills and fevers, but now, by
the tiles put in the ground to carry off the
surplus moisture, transformed into the